Are you a planner?
I am.
I love to map out my school year on a paper calendar (paper is better than digital, hands down). I write down all our usual school activities like dress-up weeks, Red Ribbon Week festivities, Back to School Night, and a tentative breakdown of my lessons.
But this year....
OHHHHH this year.....
I have NO IDEA what school will look like. Will we even be in school the whole year? Will we have to go remote again? Will we have any of those usual school activities that we have every single year?
The teacher planner in me has a small heart attack at the thought of next year. How can a girl plan when she has NO CLUE WHAT TO PLAN FOR?!
If you are feeling this way, here are a few things we CAN do right now even though we are looking into the UNKNOWN (key the music to Frozen 2's "Into the Unknown" right here...)
1. Set a goal to make just a few lessons digital. There's an overwhelming chance we'll go remote again at some point so videoing a couple of lessons or figuring out a few digital activities will be helpful when that suddenly happens again.
2. Think about SEL. Social and Emotional Learning has always been important, but I can't think of a year when it will be more important than this year. Children need to know how to recognize and handle their emotions. As their teacher, how can I incorporate SEL adequately into my classroom?
3. Figure out Essential Standards. Yes, everything we teach is important. But is it all completely, totally essential? As a 5th grade math teacher, yes I want my students to work with line plots--but is that as ESSENTIAL as them knowing how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators? This year, we may need to focus on the essentials in our subject areas first. We can always use the end of the school year for the rest of our standards once those critical essentials are taught and understood.
4. Explore Google. No, this is not an affiliate post--I've never been a part of anything like that. But Google does have a lot of things that can help teachers in the digital world. I absolutely adore Google Forms. To me, they are easy for students to navigate and easy for teachers to assign. You can easily make your own or find a ton on Teachers Pay Teachers! I have Google Forms where students are Math Detectives and Google Forms where students enjoy traveling the world with Math Travels!
5. Ponder a new room arrangement. My students sit at tables. How in the world will I be able to have them six feet apart when they sit four to a table?! The mathematical side of my brain just can't figure out how this will possibly work, but I'm open to new seating arrangement ideas. Maybe I can twist the table so that only three students sit there and they are all facing one direction? Maybe if I move that cabinet somewhere else the tables can move further away. I don't know. But at least pondering it helps me feel I am doing something towards my summer planning.
6. Talk to your grade level about what worked/didn't work in remote learning. I don't know about you, but I learned SO MUCH during the Spring 2020 Remote Learning. I learned that students DO NOT know how to write an email. (I cannot count how many emails I received with the ENTIRE BODY OF THE EMAIL in the SUBJECT LINE.) Our language teacher is going to start her year teaching students how to properly formulate an email. Then, should we have to go remote again or even if a student gets sick and they are home online, they will know how to properly execute an email. Things like that. Talk to your grade level. What can EACH OF YOU teach at the beginning of the school year that would help EVERYONE should remote learning happen suddenly again?
7. Trust that what is unknown to us is completely known to God. My only peaceful thought about this upcoming school year is that God has already got this. Do I know what will happen? Goodness no. Does my administration know? Nope. Does God? YES.
Isn't that YES comforting? He will get us through this. He will teach us more with this unknown year than a year we could perfectly plan out. He's got this. He's got you. He's got your classroom.
If He can make five loaves and two fish feed a multitude, He can make six tables somehow accommodate 24 children six feet apart! (That might be the greater miracle...)
Trust Him with all of this unknown.
Unknown to us, completely known to Him. Rest in that, my dear fellow Type A- summer-planner teacher friends!!!